Sierra, married to Larry and expecting his twins any day now, wonders what the future will be like for her growing family and whether figures from the past will come back to haunt her.

A long-owed commission for  geckoguy123456789 and a sequel to Sierra: New Beginnings . I think I've got what Gecko likes down to a science by now, which makes his commissions pretty easy to write.

Thumbnail image drawn by  Bullydog
Comments are appreciated!

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Yknow, sometimes, I don’t think anybody is actually born a morning person. Waking up at the crack of dawn is just too agonizing to even consider that somebody would find any kind of joy from it. I think the people that call themselves that have just gotten used to doing it for so long, they’ve got a kinda ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ with the sun. It’s the only thing that makes sense when I inevitably crack my eyes open at five in the morning and groan like a dying car engine. The first thing I saw in the light of the rising sun is the back of Larry’s head, as fast-asleep as I wish I was. I grumble, then weakly punch the back of his neck. Larry doesn’t move. He’s not a morning person either, but it’s his fault my belly is currently packed full with two of them.

The culprits were the two bully-wolf pups that were doing cartwheels in my womb like they were training for the Olympics. Given Larry’s very big genes, it hadn’t taken long for the twins to grow big enough to kick me awake in the middle of the night, but it still hadn’t been long enough for me to get used to it. I was big enough that I needed to sleep on my side to breathe properly, my fuzzy stomach taking up enough room for an entire extra person. Thank god we upgraded mattresses with my Christmas bonus. Otherwise, Larry might have found himself getting kicked onto the floor in the middle of the night by his two active sons.

If it wasn’t obvious by my belt-busting, earth-shaking, record-breaking baby belly, I’m pregnant again. I’m super pregnant again. I’m packed-to-the-lungs, apron-high, ready-to-drop-at-any-given-second pregnant. Again.
As I waddle around the house with my hands on my back and my stomach bumping into walls, I can’t shake the sense of deja vu from the first time I had an occupant taking up space in there. With a few key differences, of course. First off, the father decided to stick around this time. I know we had planned it, but it was still a nice feeling to have the father of my pup(s) actually excited about them. It’s a bit of an improvement over being knocked up and abandoned in the biggest city in the world by the last guy that got me all pregged up.

I smiled to myself in the dark, reaching out and laying a hand on Larry’s broad shoulder. He’s a nice guy. I should know; I married him, after all.
I made a noise sort of like a gulp-cough when one of the twins did a flip and headbutted me in the rib. I reached under the blanket to give my stupid-huge belly a little pat to try and maybe tell my son to not beat me up before he’s even born. He just kicked against my hand. I don’t think he got the message.

The second big difference with this pregnancy is that, apparently, my uterus got upgraded to a duplex by surprise. Even with my experience through having Hope, twins were proving to be a totally different ballpark. At the time, I’d thought my very wiggly daughter was the most active a baby could get in the womb. Apparently, I hadn’t been thinking ‘creatively’ enough. Once it became obvious I was having a pair of pups instead of just one, they took every opportunity to make sure I knew it. When one was sleeping, the other was usually busy twisting and turning and jumping in my tummy like I was a bouncy house. It was easy enough to get used to, but when they were both awake, it turned my belly into a free-for-all. After I hit my third trimester, I used to just sit down and wait for them to tire themselves out before trying to do anything. By this point, though, they’ve gotten too big to move around as much. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.

I never truly mastered the art of going back to sleep after being woken up by the twins, so I just grumbled awake in bed, trying to psych myself up enough to actually get up. I used to be able to just slip out of the bed and onto my paws, but with how heavy the twins have gotten, that just leaves me wanting to just flop down on the carpet. If Larry was awake, I’d ask him to help, but it wasn’t worth poking him awake at five in the morning to do that.
I took a deep breath, held it, then sighed it out. I rubbed a hand over my belly, then slid my arms around it so I could sort of lift it and take some weight off of my legs.

“Alright…Alright...C’mon, Sierra...C’mon...” I muttered to myself. With all the aches and pains of late-term pregnancy, it was those first steps in the morning that were always the hardest. “Okay...Okay okay okay...Three...two...one.” At the final count, I heaved my swollen body up to sitting position, my belly settling down into my lap and the twins squirming uncomfortably as they were squished by my ribs. My night shirt, which used to be one of Larry’s, rode up over my stomach. I felt the air conditioning blowing cold air against the little bit of pink, sensitive skin between my thin fur. Tugging the shirt down, I couldn’t wait until clothes fit me again.

I was hit with a sudden dizzy spell from the effort of sitting up. I had to brace against the headboard to stay up. If I fell back onto the bed, then there was no way in hell I was going to sit back up again. Thankfully, the sensation passed. With another grunt of effort, I slipped off the bed and sunk my paws into the soft carpet. Even with that cushioning, I still felt the twinge of soreness twist through them and up into my legs. I’d found that if I stood in one place for too long, my legs would go numb and I’d have to sit down somewhere. That never happened when I was full term with Hope. Apparently, my boys were already working on their dreams to be star linebackers. They sure tackled each other hard enough.

I stretched in the dark bedroom, throwing my arms out and groaning quietly while I rocked from side-to-side. I felt my belly stretch against the rest of my torso as I leaned back. It was during those moments I could tell how much of my round stomach was made up of puppy and not just fluid and fat. I didn’t need a sonogram to tell me the tykes were going to be big.

While I did a few squats to get some blood flowing into my thighs, I glanced up and caught sight of my silhouette in a modeling mirror across the room. I’d brought it home from work not long after I got pregnant in hopes that I could model some of my maternity designs with my own bump. It leaned against the wall, unused for the past nine months, because I never decided on where it should go. In the dim, early morning light, I couldn’t see much more than my own shadow cast against the wall behind me, but the shape was what caught my attention. I turned to the side, hands on my hips, and watched how my round tummy filled out in front of me. Smoothing down my shirt to get a better image, it made me feel better to see how appealingly maternal I looked. The twins sat awkwardly in me though most of the second trimester and gave me a bit of a torpedo-belly. But once they’d grown big enough, they settled back comfortably in the womb and gave me a rounder, more natural appearance. Larry never failed to tell me how cute I looked. For once, I could see what he did.

The moment broke when one of the pups kicked the other aside for more space. I hiccuped as the second one flipped around and fought his brother with a new flurry of slow, heavy shoves. I groaned, rubbing my belly with both hands to try and calm them down.
“Guys...come on,” I mumbled down at my stomach. “There’s not that much room to go around anymore. Kicking each other isn’t- hic -isn’t gonna make it any easier.” My pleading didn’t seem to do any good as the right pup tried to roll over on top of the left. I felt a pressure on my left side and watched as a paw pushed out a tiny mountain on the globe of my belly. I rubbed it, sighing dejectedly, then chuckled to myself. I spent most of my work life alongside expectant mothers, but that didn’t make my own pregnancy that much easier to deal with.

As I poked the paw of whichever twin it belonged to, I hobbled across from the bed and dropped heavily into the thick, padded computer chair. I sat up for just a moment to slip my tail through the hole in the back, then flopped into the faux-leather cushions and sighed, letting my belly settle into my hips. After an hour or two, I knew my butt would probably go numb, but it was worth it to be able to sit comfortably.
Like the hip, trendy, go-getting fashionista that I am, I usually spend these early-morning awakenings farting around on the internet. I’ve got tabs open for my pregnancy websites, including the mommy-to-be forum where I spend most of my internet time complaining about how huge the twins are. I check out YouTube, both for myself and to find some soft music to play to my belly to try and soothe the pups into not beating each other up inside me. I used to wrap my stomach in an electric blanket, but I’ve stared to worry about overheating them, especially once the temperature started to go up. Oh, yeah, it gets hot in November here. I still haven’t gotten used to that insanity.

So for the next hour and a half, I clicked idly through the internet while a pair of headphones pumped soothing music into my belly. I barely noticed the time pass, my eyes too focused on the artificial light of the monitor to notice the natural light in the windows. I was just happy to have a moment to myself, even if it did start with a rude awakening. Eventually, the twins fell back asleep, their kicks and bumps more gentle on their mom’s sore stomach. I smiled, wrapping my arm around them protectively. As taxing as it was to carry them, they were still my pups and I loved every bump and kick and bounce they did inside me.

I smiled to myself as I pulled up Facebook and tabbed through my pictures with Larry, especially the few there with Hope as a baby. I was getting excited to have a baby in the house again. While the idea of having two of them was intimidating, I had Larry there with me to help out and wasn’t confined to my sister’s guest room, like last time. We were better equipped to handle the challenge of being parents. And as good as Larry was with Hope, I could tell he was excited to have the babies be his this time around.
I frowned. That same worry came back to rear its ugly head and gnaw on the back of my brain. It had gotten worse the farther along I grew. Now, on my maternity leave, full term, and just a week from my due date, I still had no idea what to do.

Behind me, I heard a deep, manly sigh and a shuffling of bedsheets. I snapped out of my anxiety for the moment, smiling as I heard Larry mumble awake. I spun the chair around so I could watch him wake up. If it wasn’t for his dark shirt, he and his white fur would have blended in perfectly with the sheets. The only contrast on his face were the two dark spots of his eyes that fluttered open sleepily as he turned over. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes, rubbing them with the back of one of his broad hands. As his vision returned and his pupils adjusted to the light, Larry glanced up at me. He smiled weakly and I heard the soft whap sound of his tail wagging against the mattress. I love that, after all this time, he still did that when he first saw me in the morning.

“Morning, daddy-to-be,” I said, rubbing a hand over my belly. “Your boys beat you to it today.”
“They always do,” Larry mumbled. He smacked his tongue in his mouth, dried out from sleeping with it open, and cracked one eye open to look at me. “...Is that my chair?”
“Yep,” I nodded, swiveling from side-to-side. “I commandeered it.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?”
“Nope,” I said, patting my gravid stomach. “I outnumber you, after all.”
“Betrayed by my own sons,” Larry said, groaning as he stretched. He crawled over the bed toward me, but flopped onto his chest once his head cleared the mattress. Reaching out, he was able to barely reach my thigh, but grabbed hold of my leg and pulled me closer to the bed, along with the chair. I had to quickly pull the headphones away from my belly so they didn’t jerk the computer along with them.

Once I was close enough, Larry climbed to his knees and laid his head down in my lap, the top of his head grazing against my stomach. He wrapped his arms around me to hold himself in place and nuzzled his face into my legs.
“Hey there,” I said, pinching one of his ears. “Don’t fall asleep again.”
“But you’re so soft...” Larry mumbled, still wagging his tail.
“Not all of me,” I said, rapping against his head with my knuckles.
“But you can be my pillow, can’t you?” he said, letting go of my back and rubbing his thumbs over my pregnant bump.
“Only if you don’t mind being kicked in the head,” I said. “Trust me, I’d be a very bumpy pillow.”
Larry didn’t answer as he quietly rubbed his fingers through my fur. He turned his head over in my lap so he could look up at me, then pressed his nose into my stomach. He gave it a quick, affectionate lick, which tickled me enough that my laughter jostled the twins awake.

“Stooop,” I whined, pulling on his ears and trying to kick away from the bed at the same time. He brought up his hulking, muscular arms to hold the chair in place so he could continue to lick my bump. I slapped his head a few times. It took me a long time to learn that, apparently, Larry just didn’t feel much pain, especially on his head.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and finally pushed him away. I smoothed down my belly fur, then pulled him back in for a kiss.
“They woke you up again?” Larry asked, looking down at my stomach.
“They always do,” I shrugged. “Hope did that, too. It just happens when you’re farther along.” I made a face as one of the pups stretched his legs, distorting my belly under my shirt. Larry watched, wide-eyed. “Though...having an extra one in there doesn’t make it any easier.”

Larry quietly watched his son twist and stretch out inside me before settling back to sleep in his cramped living space. He lifted one of his broad hands, rough enough to crunch brick between his fingers, and gently pressed it against my gravid stomach, stroking me softly as if putting the pup to sleep inside. After a moment, he withdrew it and started chewing on one of his fingers.

“I feel like I want to apologize again,” he mumbled.
“Larry.” I tucked my hands under his chin and lifted his head up to look at me. “That is ridiculous,” I scolded him.
“I know but...” He flattened his ears bag and sighed. “You’re just having such a hard time and it’s...it’s technically my fault...”
“Technically, it was because one of my eggs decided to split one too many times after all you did was fertilize it,” I said, pinching one of his ears again. “If you think that’s your fault, then you’re crazy.”
“Well...that’s true...b-but it’s my genes that made them grow so...big.” He looked down at my stomach again, my outtie belly button nearly touching his nose. I shifted forward a few inches to quickly bop him with it.
“Then maybe I just have a giant magic wolf in my ancestry somewhere, because Hope wasn’t exactly tiny either, you know,” I said. “I’m sure you remember.”

“I do, I do,” Larry nodded. He pinched the bottom of my shirt as it rode up over me and tried to pull it back down. “But you carried it so well, I barely noticed.”
“You’re so sappy,” I teased, scratching behind his ears. He started to wag his tail again, thumping it on either side of the mattress. “I already let you put your pups in me, it’s not like you need the brownie points.”
“Well...we did only expect one pup, after all.”
“So?” I shrugged, rubbing my belly. “Things happen. I for one don’t mind getting Double Jeopardy.”

Larry cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. I blinked back.
“...Do you not have Jeopardy here?”
“I don’t know what that is, love.”

“Oh, it’s like...it’s not important. The point is that I’m not worried. If I have twins, then I have twins.” I shrugged again, then patted him on the head. “But...if you’re worried, you know you can tell me, don’t you? I don’t like you pulling this macho act when you don’t mean it.”
“Well I...I’m not worried so much...” Larry paused as he flipped over onto his back, then spun around to sit cross-legged on the bed. “...I’m nervous, is what it is. Just nervous about...you know, hoping we can take care of three little tykes at the same time. Thinking about money and time. Hoping they’re healthy, hoping you’re healthy...That I can do what’s right by the boys.” He sighed, pulling the chair closer and kneading his fingers into my belly again. “You know...regular dad stuff.”

“Hhhmmmmmfff…” I sighed instead of answering, leaning my head back into the chair and wagging my tail through the hole in the back. Whatever Larry did with his fingers on my sore baby bump was magical. Even the twins seemed to like it, but I could never recreate it myself. “If...if you’re as good a dad as you are a hu-husband then...you don’t have anything to...oh god, that feels so good...” I grabbed his wrists and almost painfully pulled them away from my belly. “Sorry, I couldn’t think. Larry, you’ve already been more than a perfect dad to Hope. I don’t have a doubt in my mind you can do this. I’m not nervous because I know you’re with me, and if you’re with me, I can do anything.”

Larry grinned, turning away and scratching the back of his head bashfully while furiously thrashing his tail.
“You’re...you’re too nice about me…” he said, flattening his ears.
“No I’m not,” I said, leaning forward over my belly to turn him back toward me. “If anything, I’m being cynical and realistic about how much I love you.” This sent Larry into another bashful fit as he buried his face in his hand and chuckled. It was amazing how easily a doe-eyed, chiseled hunk of a bull terrier like him could get embarrassed. I leaned back and idly drew circles around my belly button.
“Well if we just face the facts,” I said in a sultry voice, “we know that you’re a virile stud, at the very least.”
“Stop,” he begged, clenching his hands between his legs and thwapping his tail against the bed. I giggled, kicking my paws up to rest on his knees and leaning back with my hand on my belly.
“I don’t know if I can ever stop teasing you, baby. It’s too much fun.”
“You’re heartless.”
“No I’m not. I’m pregnant.” I grinned. “Pregnant women can get away with anything.”

Larry shook his head and sighed, but glanced up with a groggy smile blooming on his face. He leaned over and put both hands on the sides of my belly, then rubbed them as hard and as fast as he could over my shirt.
“Geeeugh,” I squealed, kicking my paws in his lap while he rubbed static electricity into my fur. He then jostled my belly from side to side, enough to annoy me, but not enough to hurt. “Stooop!” I whined, batting him on the head. “They just fell asleep again!” Larry just grinned while the twins angrily kicked and squirmed in my womb, only stopping once he could feel them moving as well.

“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes as my crowded belly once again turned into a grouchy mosh pit for the two pups. “Thanks.”
“You deserved it,” he said, cheekily. He sat back, watching as they moved beneath my skin. “You know...I really can’t wait to see what they look like. The ultrasounds don’t show much of that.”
“Well, I know they at least inherited your size,” I grumbled, shifting as I helplessly sat through the twin’s prenatal argument.

“I hope they look more like you and Hope,” Larry said. “I love how you both have those tall ears and how your tails turn up like that. But...well, I can’t wait to see what parts of me they’ll get, too.”
“Mmm...” I nodded, wordlessly. His words triggered a thought, something that’d been on my mind ever since I first conceived. The only question about this pregnancy that kept me up at night. Larry noticed my far away look. His smile faltered and he folded his ears back.

“...Hey...I’m sorry,” he said, patting my stomach gently. “I was just teasing you, I didn’t mean-”
“No no, it’s not that,” I said, taking his hand in mine, but still looking away. “It’s...well, it’s that other thing.” I let go of Larry’s hand and pushed away from the bed with my legs, rolling the chair back toward the computer. I turned and pushed my way back up to it, as close as I could get to the desk without my belly pressing into the wooden corners. Larry stood up and crouched next to the chair, watching as I took the mouse and opened the Facebook tab I’d had open for the past few days.
It was the personal Facebook page of Josh Harrington, a confident and bright-eyed husky, grinning next to a lake with a large fish in one hand and a pretty jack russel girl in his other. The sight of him gave me morning sickness all over again. The sight of him happy made it even worse.

Josh. My ex-boyfriend.
And Hope’s biological father.

“Sierra...” Larry said, glancing at me. I didn’t look back, and instead continued to stare at the profile picture and tap my finger over the mouse. “Sierra, you really don’t want to open this can of worms again, do you?”
“No...God no...” I shook my head. “I blocked him right after he left me. And I’m glad I did. I’d be happy to go the rest of my life never thinking of his pretty-boy, spoiled dirtbag ass ever again. But...maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Seirra,” Larry warned. “I’ve told you before, you don’t owe this fuckin’ gobshite a god damn thing.”
“And you’re right. I don’t.” I turned up to look at Larry. “...But what about Hope?”
Larry opened his mouth to answer, but instead just sighed and frowned, turning back to the Facebook page. He bared his teeth as if he was about to growl.
“I’m not an angry bloke,” Larry said through his teeth. “But if he ever sets foot in down under with me around, I’m liable to drag his ass out into the bush and leave him there to rot.”

“And I’m sure you could recruit Micky to help you,” I nodded, patting his shoulder. “But Larry...no matter what changes...he’s Hope’s father.”
“Who abandoned her and you before she was even born,” Larry growled. “I’ll say he made his choice pretty clear.”
“But it’s not about him...” I sighed, then looked down at my belly, imagining what the pups inside looked like. “When these two are born...Hope’s going to notice they don’t look like her. Maybe not right away, but soon. She’s such a smart girl, but I’m almost afraid she’s too smart. That she’ll...figure it out before she should.” I glanced up at Larry, my face feeling heavy. “And she deserves to know the truth. She deserves to meet Josh if she wants to.”
“But does he deserve to meet her?” Larry asked.

“Maybe he’s changed,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as him. “Maybe...maybe he’s grown up a little. It’s been a long time. Doesn’t he at least deserve to know he has a daughter somewhere?”
“You’re halfway across the world, love,” Larry said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t think it makes a damn bit of difference.”
“That’s true...” I sighed. “If I could ever get away without telling him, I’m in a good position to. But...it just doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe not now,” Larry said, kneading his hands into my shoulders affectionately, “but wouldn’t it be so much easier on you to just forget about him?”

“It would...but...what if it comes back to bite us?” I looked up at Larry again, up into his gentle eyes. “What if...what if we hide this from her and Hope figures it out...She might resent us for it, or...” I sighed, then shook my head. “I want you to be Hope’s dad. You should be. I don’t want anything to hurt that relationship.”
“Well...” Larry paused, taking his hands off me and squeezing the leather of the chair. He nodded to himself, clicked his tongue, then patted me on the shoulders again. “Then I’ll just have to be a good enough dad that she won’t care whether I’m related to her or not.” He nodded curtly.
“I...well...” I sighed, smiling and letting myself trust in my husband. “Then I guess that’s the plan.”

“Sierra, listen,” Larry said, flopping over the chair and kissing me on the top of the head. “I’m too tired and you’re too pregnant for us to stress about this now.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and gently shook me before reaching down to my belly and patting it like a drum. “We should both take it easy. Especially you. All three of you.”
Before I could answer, the two of us perked up at the sound of a soft thunk from behind wall, followed by a rapid patter of tiny paws skittering around the room at the end of the hall. We sighed in unison.
“So much for taking it easy,” I said. I heard a door handle turn after a few desperate attempts, then steps rapidly closing in on the bedroom door. “Brace yourself.”

In a sudden flurry from the doorway, a blur of pink and brown barreled into the room like a bolt of lighting, tumbling to the carpet in a heap before immediately hopping up again like she’d bounced when she hit the ground. Hope braced against the side of the bed and panted while she wagged her tail like a helicopter blade. She wore her favorite pink nightgown with moons on it and gripped her stuffed snake toy in one hand (despite dragging most of it on the ground behind her). She’d been awake barely five minutes and she already looked like she was in the middle of running a marathon.
“There’s my little ankle-biter!” Larry cried, snatching Hope off the ground while she squealed and kicked her paws. He always exaggerated his accent and slang when talking to her. I wasn’t quite sure why he did it, but it was adorable. He rolled back onto the bed with her, dropping her onto the pillows so she wouldn’t be hurt. She quickly crawled upright and pounced on him pulling on his arms and trying to crawl up to his face. As she did, Larry grabbed her by the shoulders and licked her while she tried to squirm away while laughing hysterically.

“Daddy! Daddy, I was asleep last night and-and-and-and I had a dream that I was, that I was a princess but-but-but-but there was, um, there was, uh, and I saw a big cake and-”
“You already are a little princess,” Larry said, interrupting her meandering story to kiss her on the head again. She lost her train of thought in another fit of giggles as Larry tickled her. The instant he stopped, Hope flipped onto her knees and caught eyes with me, wagging her tail hard enough to bat Larry in the face with it.

“Hi, mummy!” she said, waving her hand high above her head. Hope had started to develop a distinct Australian accent of her own that I loved hearing. It was like music every time she spoke. She began to crawl across the bed toward me, but Larry quickly held her back by the leg.
“Be gentle, love,” Larry warned, gesturing to me. “Your mum’s gonna have your brothers soon.”
“Okay,” Hope whispered, for some reason. She crawled across the bed slowly and carefully and hopped down on the floor. Creeping up to the chair, she stood on the tips of her toes so she could touch her nose to my belly. She waved to it and carefully patted me with an open hand. “Good morning babies,” she continued to whisper, “please come see me soon because I want to play with you.”

“They’ll be out soon enough, baby,” I cooed, smoothing down her ears. “They’re almost ready.”
“Can you take them out today?” Hope asked, looking up at me. I chuckled, shaking my head.
“They have to come out when they’re ready to,” I explained. “It’s not up to me.”
“How do they come out?” Hope asked. I glanced nervously up at Larry, then changed the subject.
“Have you brushed your teeth yet?” I asked, pinching her by the ears. The five year old always forgot to do that in her hurry to leap out of bed and run head-first into the day. Hope frowned and tucked her tail between her legs bashfully and wrung her nightgown in her hands.
“No...” she mumbled.
“Well,” I sighed, gesturing to her mouth, “open up. Let me see.”

Hope opened her mouth as wide as she could, baring her full set of sharp, canine teeth. With both wolf and husky genes in her, she wasn’t likely to run into many tooth problems in her life, but it was my job to teach her good habits. I leaned over and prodded her teeth, making exaggerated ‘Hmmm’ and ‘Uh huh’ sounds like a dentist.
“Oh no,” I moaned in mock despair. “Hope, all your teeth are gone! They all turned black and fell out!” I shook my head and made ‘tsk’ sounds.
“No they didn’t, mummy!” Hope giggled, squirming to pull away while I gazed into her mouth.
“They’re all gone! The only thing you can eat anymore is glue and pea soup!” I sighed, letting go of her face and propping my hands on my hips while shaking my head. “This is all because you didn’t brush your teeth. You’ll have to chew your food with rocks instead, now.”
“No I won’t!” Hope protested, her tail wagging again.

“You will if you don’t brush your teeth every day,” I warned, pushing her toward the doorway. “Go on!”
Hope frowned, then scurried out of the door, stopping to pick up her snake from the carpet and drag it behind her. Larry sighed and shook his head.
“I can’t get her to do anything she doesn’t want to,” Larry grumbled.
“That’s why you have to appeal to her imagination,” I said, leaning back and rubbing a sore spot on the side of my belly. Larry scoffed.
“I have loads of imagination,” he defended.
“I know you do. But you’re not good at using it in the moment like that.” I turned the chair to the side and held out my hands. “Now c’mon daddy, give us a hand here.”

Larry sluggishly climbed off the bed on the opposite side and walked around it, yawning and scratching his butt through his underwear as he did so.
“Oooh, so manly,” I teased. He stopped right in front of my chair and folded his arms.
“Do you need help or not?”
I rolled my eyes and braced against the arm rests. In an attempt to heave my pregnant body out of the chair, I instead succeeded in almost giving myself a leg cramp as I tried to sit up over my belly. I flopped back down in the seat, drumming my fingers over my belly and glancing helplessly up at Larry.
“...Yes, please.”
He chuckled and took me by the hands, pulling me up to my paws effortlessly. In fact, his pull was strong enough that I stumbled forward and bumped into him, belly-first. He caught me around the back to keep me from falling and ended up holding me in place with my round stomach pressing into his.

“This seems familiar,” he teased, running his hand down past my tail to touch my ass. Using his other hand, he slid a hand under my shirt and caressed my bump. “So does this.”
“Oh does it?” I said, looking up at him and guiding his hand father down my backside. “What exactly does it remind you...” I paused for a moment, then sighed. A new flurry of kicks and punches from my belly ruined the moment. “Well, there’s that over with...”

“Sorry,” Larry chuckled, feeling the twins kick against his hand. “We’ll get some alone time soon enough.”
“I just...uuuugh,” I groaned. Looking down, I made claws out of my fingers and tapped them against my baby belly uselessly. “I just...I want to reach in there and just grab them and be like...’you go over, here and you go over here.’” I mimed grabbing hold of the twins and separating them to either side of my womb.
“I’m sorry,” Larry said, more sincerely as he moved his hand from my belly to my hip. “I wish I could do something. I hate seeing you have such a hard time.”
“Sweetie, it’s okay,” I shrugged, “I’m just pregnant, Larry. It’s not supposed to be easy, but I can handle it.” I smiled, then rubbed his shoulder affectionately. “I’ve done it before after all, without your help. I’m not that fragile.”
“And what, I’m not supposed to want to protect you?” Larry said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re carrying my babies, Sierra. I’m supposed to be overprotective.”
“Well you’re doing a very. Good. Job.” I poked him in the chest with every syllable.

With a patter of her little legs on the carpet, Hope ran back into the room, toothpaste foam encircling her mouth. She wiped the foam onto the back of her sleeve while I winced and made plans to throw her nightgown in the washing machine after she left for school. With an anticipating smile on her face, she crouched on her haunches and crawled between my legs and hid beneath my belly where I couldn’t see her. I glanced at Larry with a smirk.

“Hmm...” I said, exaggeratedly scratching my head. “Wasn’t there a little girl in here just now?” I waddled forward a few steps while Hope crouched under my protruding stomach and snickered. I could feel her head and ears brushing against my exposed fur and stretched skin. I slowly turned around, pretending to search the room for her while she huddled out of view beneath me. “I thought I had a daughter didn’t I? What was her name?...Hop? Was it Hoop?” I heard her snicker under me as I mispronounced her name. Larry and I shot each other an amused glance. I reached over and braced myself on his shoulder while I held my belly in my other arm. “Oh well...I guess I’ll just sit down riiiiight here.” While holding myself up on Larry’s shoulder, I slowly started to crouch and drop the weight of my belly on top of Hope’s head.
“Mum! Mum! Mummyyyyyyy!” She squealed, papping her hands against my belly as she tried to fight off my descent. At the last second, I shifted back and fell back onto the bed, making her scurry out from under me. I began to laugh, but a sudden dizzy spell made my head swim and I grabbed onto Larry’s arm to keep from falling over.

“Sierra?” He asked, quickly squatting next to me with a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I dismissed, holding my head until the room stopped spinning. I blinked as my equilibrium started to come back to me. “Just...a little dizzy. Too active, too early, yknow?” I squeezed his hand and smiled, then caught sight of Hope a few feet away, staring at me concernedly with wide eyes and one of her fingers in her mouth. I smiled warmly at her and held out my arm to beckon her closer. She sighed a little in relief as her own grin came back and she hopped forward into my reach.
“I’m okay, baby,” I cooed to her under my arm. I guided one of her little hands over my comparatively enormous belly. “Making babies is hard work, that’s all.” I pulled her in, then kissed the top of her head, taking a moment to smell the dusty scent of her fur. I don’t know why, but that always seemed to calm me.

“Can ya help me dress up for school?” Hope asked, pleading up at me while wagging her tail. Before I could answer, Larry dropped onto one knee beside us.
“Yer mum’s a bit tuckered out, love. Let her rest a tick and I’ll help you pick out some clothes.”
“So I shouldn’t be surprised if she comes out looking like a circus clown?” I teased, lifting my leg and poking him with one of my paws. He huffed.
“I know how to dress my own little girl,” he defended. He took one of Hope’s hands in his own giant palm and led her out into the hallway. I watched them go, sighing contentedly as I watched the five year old lead the musclebound bull terrier into the bedroom.

In the silence, I leaned back a little on the mattress and took a deep sigh, trying to relax my belly as much as I could as it settled back into my lap. I ran a hand over it, still amazed at how big I’d gotten. At the beginning of my third trimester with the twins, I was as big as I was at term with Hope. I grumbled frustratedly, unable to see my knees beyond my ripe belly. I’m not a big girl, by any standards, and I’m certainly not built to be the kind of baby-factory my hormones seem to want me to be.

I felt a sudden twitch, nothing more than a sharp pinch, right below my bellybutton. I’d been getting more of those lately. I’d learned to recognize Braxton-Hicks contractions from my last pregnancy, but the persistent sore feeling I’d been waking up with for the past few weeks was something different. My tummy felt clenched, the muscles both tired and sore all at once, like I was in the middle of one long, week contraction. It hadn’t been long since the twins had dropped, I could tell from how low my belly had been riding lately, so maybe it was just the sensation of extra pressure on my cervix. Regardless, it was starting to bother me. I wished I had an excuse to soak in a hot tub or something.
I snapped out of my discomfort once Hope ran back into the room, wearing a yellow sun dress with a blue bow snapped onto the middle. At nearly a foot away, she planted her paws and leaped the remaining distance, flopping onto the mattress beside me.

“Careful, Hope!” Larry called, padding in the room right behind her. As Hope clambered back onto her knees, she put her hands on her shoulder to hold herself up and waited expectantly for me to comment on her outfit.
“Hmmm…” I mused, scratching my chin while I drummed my fingers atop my stomach. The dress was something I bought from a designer’s show before it had officially been released, so it was getting old. Hope was growing like a weed, so while the dress fit her then, it likely wouldn’t be big enough for her after long. I quickly plucked off the bow and held it up. “Do you remember the color wheel I showed you, baby? The colors across from each other look the best together.” I put the bow in her hand and pointed down the hall. “Go see if you can find your purple one.”

Hope nodded excitedly, then nearly tumbled off the bed and ran back to her room. Larry put his hands on his hips and sighed, shaking his head.
“How she doesn’t tire herself out,” he said, “I will never know.”
“Her teacher tells me she’s one of the only kids to actually go to sleep at nap time,” I said. I held out my hand and let Larry help me off the bed. “Oof...She’ll crash out after lunch just to get up and run around all over again.”
“Maybe the boys will be the same way,” Larry added, holding my stomach.
“Doesn’t feel like it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “They just like to ‘go go go’ all through the middle of the night.”
“So what are you and the twins doing today?” Larry asked, absentmindedly exploring his fingers over my curvy body. I tried not to blush. “Takin’ it easy?”

“I wish,” I said. “I need to make a grocery run and-” I jumped from a kick to my rib from one of the pups, wincing slightly. “...And I’d better do it sooner than later.”
“It can wait, can’t it?” Larry said, stepping back. “I wish you’d take it easy around the house more often.”
“I don’t need to remind you that I was out working hard and going on dates up until Hope was born,” I said, smirking and planting my hands on my hips. “I can handle.”
“But do I need to remind you how that date ended?” Larry said, raising his eyebrow.
“...Well...no, but...” I faltered, then glanced back up. “But I can’t stay cooped up inside for a whole day. It’s not in my nature.”
“I know, I know,” Larry sighed. He stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek, then leaned over and kissed the top of my pregnant bump twice. I wagged my own tail as he did it. “Just be safe.”
“You’re my emergency contact,” I reassured him, miming a phone with my fingers. “If… ‘it’ happens, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I’m a patient fella,” Larry nodded. “Maybe my kids will be, too.”
“I hope not,” I groaned, sticking my tongue out. “I miss seeing my paws down there.”

Hope, for the fourth time, sprinted back into the bedroom, a purple bow snapped onto the middle of her dress. It looked fantastic. She had her backpack strapped on and ready to go with her stuffed snake wrapped around her arm.
“Can mum take me to school today?” she asked, hopping up and down in place.
“I have to go across town to the store, I can’t. Daddy will have to take you, this time.”
Hope suddenly stopped bouncing, her ears drooping as her smile began to fade.
“But...I want mum to take me to school...” she said, her excitement fading. Before I could cave in and agree to take her, Larry hopped in front of me and crouched her her eye level.
“Sorry kiddo, but mum has to rest today for the babies,” he said. He tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her head up, a twinkle in his eye. “But...how about we go to Macca’s on the way to school and get some brekkie, eh?” Hope gasped like she’d just been declared Queen and furiously started wagging her tail.
“Can I get a Happy Meal for brekkie?” She asked, her eyes wide with amazement.
“If they have it, of course,” Larry grinned, pinching her ear. “But we gotta go now if we wanna get there before school.”

“Okay!” Hope gasped. She hopped forward and waved at me with her entire arm. “Bye, mummy!” She glanced slightly down to my middle and waved again. “Bye, babies!”
“I’ll see you tonight, baby,” I waved back. Made a face as a pup dragged a paw along my insides, pushing out a bump around my shirt. “The...The babies say goodbye, too.”
“We’re shootin’ through, love,” Larry said, following Hope as she ran out the door. Gripping the door frame, he leaned back and winked. “Love you.”

“You too,” I said, winking back. With a flash of teeth, followed by a slight wag of his tail, Larry slipped out the doorway. I listened for a few seconds as the two loudly thunked down the stairs and eventually left through the slamming of the front door. Right after that, I heard the cranking of Larry’s car and the crunch as it pulled out of the driveway.

On most days, I usually left the house a good hour or two before Larry with Hope alongside me to drop her off at school. But after I got put on maternity leave (forcibly, I’d like to add), getting left home alone to ‘relax’ was...intimidating. After moving in with my sister and her family when I came to Australia, I had shockingly little time on my own, especially with a daughter to look after. At first, I looked forward to the time I could spend on my own while I worked on my second job of baby-making, but the loneliness took more out of me than I expected. So I picked up a habit after Larry left for work once I realized that, technically, I wasn’t alone. I just wasn’t with anybody that could talk back to me.
“Morning, guys,” I said, stretching my back and pushing my belly out into my hand to give it a pat. The twins squirmed at being pushed into one another. “Yknow, if I could get away playing you music all day, I would. I’m just not sure if I could go out in public with headphones strapped over my gut. I guess you can’t spend all of your time sleeping, but I wish you’d wait to practice jogging before you’re out of me.”

One of the pups tried to turn over, but as he found he didn’t have enough room to, he shuffled and kicked angrily.
“Yeah yeah, I know, it’s not exactly comfy for me either,” I sighed, pushing a finger into where I thought his back was. I frowned as the skin of my belly didn’t yield like it used to and I only succeeded in poking myself too hard. “Ugh...I’m so tight now...This sucks.” The other twin fidgeted beside his brother and kicked his feet as if trying to run. “You’re probably right. I don’t care how far along we are, I just want to get out of the house,” I said, interpreting the pup’s restlessness as my own.

I flexed my toes in the middle of the room as they started falling asleep from standing on them too long. But as I looked up, I caught sight of myself in the floor-length mirror again, but with enough morning light coming in through the windows to actually see how much hot garbage I looked like. I grimaced as I turned to the side to look at my profile. My cute, maternal baby-bump in the darkness looked distressingly huge and lopsided in the light, nearly spilling out of Larry’s old fishing t-shirt I used as pajamas. I could see little spots of dark-red fur poking out of holes all over. I was covered in split-ends and bed fur like I’d slept in the dryer last night, and the bags under my eyes weren’t exactly a good look, either. While I wore panties, the hang of the shirt looked like I wasn’t wearing anything below my hips (which I’d get away with if I could, just not with a toddler running around the house).

“Oh my God...” I moaned, turning in place to get a clearer look at myself. “Did you two know that a fashion blog once called your mom an ‘up-and-coming icon of design?’” I chuckled as I pulled my hair back. “She must have met me on a good day...” I sighed, letting my hair fall down, then patted my belly a few times in a habit I’d picked up from my last pregnancy. “Welp. Let’s go see if we can pretty me up a bit so I don’t look so much like a pumpkin.”

I hitched up my underwear and pulled off Larry’s shirt as I wagged my tail, despite myself, and waddled over to the walk-in closet next to the bathroom. It was one of my favorite things when we got the house and I made good use out of it within the first month. It was cluttered with mannequins and swatches of fabric crammed into the corner. The hardest part of deciding to have more kids was definitely having to turn my design room into a new nursery. Maybe I could convince Larry to move some of my stuff back in there once they were born.
Hanging on the rack to the right of the door were a few mock-up designs and prototypes for the Verduga Maternity Line I was now in charge of. Most of them had been worn once or twice in fashion shows or in magazine shoots, but I couldn’t so easily let my designs get stuffed into crate somewhere. I offered to take as many extra dresses home as I could, even before Larry and I decided on getting me pregnant again. I figured I’d find a use for them eventually. I guess I did.
I stuck my tongue out as I stood in the closet doorway, my stomach poking out over the threshold and probably making a bizarre sight for someone comping up the stairs and glancing into the bedroom. Thumbing past the rainbow of dresses, I couldn’t find anything that particularly stuck out to me, especially since I’d long exhausted my favorite designs to just throw on when I needed to get out of the house. It was sometimes bizarre to go out to pick up milk and cereal wearing a maternity evening dress, but why pay for maternity clothes when I headed the department that made them?

But as I slid the dresses over the rack with a frown on my face, I spotted something I’d thrown in the back of the closet as an afterthought. A royal blue summer dress with wide sleeves I’d commissioned for a show a few years ago. I’d loved the design and the color, especially how it looked against my fur, but we couldn’t use it for the show because I’d accidentally written down the dimensions wrong and the dressmaker came up with something way, way too big for the model we’d hired. Scrapping it felt like throwing away a painting because the frame was the wrong size, so I just took it off the rack at the end of the show and went home with it. I crouched as low as I could without falling over and picked it up, wagging my tail at finding something I knew would actually fit me and my overactive twin belly.

“To succeed in this business,” I said to my pups as I shuffled back to the bedroom mirror, “you have to know your customers. And the one thing I know every pregnant woman in the world wants...” I flipped over the dress, stuck my arms through the holes and upended it so it fell over my body like a blue, cascading wave, “...is something easy to put on once you get too big.” I sighed contentedly, adjusting the dress over my belly and my neck and swiveling on my hips to make the end of the dress billow out over my legs. Satisfied, I wagged my tail under the fabric and wrapped my hands around my stomach.

“It feels so good to be covered up when you’re this big...” I smiled to myself. “You two really take after your dad...” I giggled as one of them kicked. “You’ll see in a couple weeks.”
Feeling miles better after I was dressed, I shuffled into the bathroom to continue my morning routine while chatting mindlessly to my unborn pups.
“I don’t think I’d be as successful as I am if I didn’t have Hope,” I said. “Caroline had been thinking about starting some kind of maternity line ever since she had her second kid, but couldn’t find anyone willing to dedicate time to the project on her regular staff. So she saw a lot of promise in my designs, especially once I stated to re-purpose them to fit a baby belly. I doubt I would have had the experience of designing those clothes if I hadn’t been pregnant myself. For once, having a pup young gave me an advantage.”

I paused my dialogue as I brushed my teeth, immediately continuing once I finished. The twins were calm in my womb. I like to think they were listening with rapt attention to my story.
“So before, I just thought the key to maternity designs was just slapping some extra fabric on the front of my regular dresses,” I said, shrugging to myself. “And that isn’t really wrong, but it wasn’t until I thought about having you guys that I started to really think about the intent behind the clothes, yknow? Do you want to conceal, enhance, frame, complement? It all depends on what you want, and every mom wants something different. Some women don’t want anyone to know they’re packin’ a little one, so they want colors and clothes that conceal the bump. You know how...heh, well, you don’t know, but you will...when you see a woman with a little pudge and you really don’t know if she’s pregnant or if she’s just tubby? Some women want that look.

“Some moms? They want to show it off. The more obvious, the better. They think, ‘hell yeah, I’m pregnant, check me out! Why should I be embarrassed?’ We’ve got designs for them, too, and they’re a lot more popular that most people think. Bright colors, separation lines around the belly area, lots of extra space. They’re popular for baby showers, I hear. I’m thinking about proposing separate lines for each of these ‘intent’ styles. Maybe ‘Bold’ for the show-offy designs, ‘Demure’ for the modest ones. Maybe use French words. Caroline loves that.”

I spent the next hour talking to my belly about nothing in particular as I got ready to go out. It didn’t always take an hour for me to get ready, but having a couple pups in your middle didn’t really speed things up. Plus, the better I looked in the morning, the better I felt leaving the house. Despite Larry constantly assuring me otherwise, I felt pretty consistently ugly after I hit the third trimester with the twins. Bloating, retaining water, sore paws, losing sleep, none of them did any favors for your appearance. Just taking the time to fix my hair, smooth out my fur, dress in something nice, and maybe paint my nails (the ones on my hands, obviously), it made me feel less self-conscious.

By the time I finished and stepped out the front door, I at least looked